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Paul Moran

For 30 years, more than 22 at Newsday, in New York, Paul Moran has covered thoroughbred racing on its highest level. During that time, he has covered 30 Triple Crown series, every running of the Breeders' Cup Championships, 23 race meetings at Saratoga, won two Eclipse Awards, a Red Smith Award for coverage of the Kentucky Derby and other writing awards from the National Society of Newspaper Editors, Long Island Press Club, Society of Silurians (the oldest press club in New York), Long Island Veterinary Medical Association, Florida Magazine Publishers Association.

In 2002, he was named New York's best thoroughbred handicapper by the New York Press in its annual "Best of Manhattan" edition. His work has appeared in virtually every racing publication published in the United States and most major American newspapers. He is a licensed owner of thoroughbreds in New York Contact: paulmoran47@hotmail.com.

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Saturday, December 13, 2008

In a revealing Monday analysis of declining betting receipts that began late in the 20th Century and has since steepened that appeared on his site, Ray Paulick raises the point that corporate ownership of racetracks has been a unanimous failure while the few remaining privately owned tracks – Tampa Bay Downs and Oaklawn Park – have flourished while swimming against the tide of declining attendance and betting receipts.

Meanwhile, in Tucson, where the annual excuse for golf and cocktails wrapped around the annual symposium hosted by the University of Arizona Racetrack Industry program, there is universal agreement that an effort to draw fans and bettors back to racetracks is essential to the sport’s future.

This is more or less the equivalent to saying: My portfolio is down by 50 percent. But I’ll survive the recession if I can win the lottery.

A potentially lethal brew of misconception has become racing’s Kool-Aid. The corporations that own most American racetracks have no understanding of the audience and the people to whom they look for solutions have no understanding of the sport’s
structure and underpinning.

There are no fans to bring back and bettors are reacting to an unpalatable product by reducing risk. This is more a financial market than a sport.

Corporate types that make decisions nowadays are focused on the bottom line and responsible primarily to shareholders. Magna Entertainment, the largest corporate owner of racetracks including Santa Anita and Gulfstream Parks – is a monumental failure even while, as Paulick notes, the shareholders have seen more than 99 percent of value evaporate beneath the weight of fearless leader Frank Stronach’s dementia. His first mistake was the notion that people come to racetracks to be entertained, which is entirely fallacious. Horseplayers show up, if at all, to bet on horses.

A matter of months after a 1-for-20 reverse split undertaken to avoid delisting, the stock is again trading at less than $1, closing at $0.785 on Wednesday. It is difficult to imagine Magna’s long-term survival is unlikely and the most devastating failure in the racing’s history is almost assuredly at hand.

Private ownership, while working nicely at Tampa and Hot Spring, Ark., can also be disastrous in the wrong hands. Two words support this observation: Hialeah Park.

The real problem is that the people who operate racetracks lack an understanding of the sport and its audience. They continue fruitlessly ludicrous attempts to emulate the business practices of other sports, which are organized in leagues and franchises and enjoy central authoritative organizations. Racing is by comparison a herd of cats attempting to solve the same challenges that began to manifest themselves decades ago when the handwriting first appeared on the wall.

Recall forecasts made in the ‘70s that predicted the day when only a few of the largest tracks would survive, racing would become a studio sport and horseplayers would place wagers by telephone. This was evident long before anyone imagined the current advances in technology.

Now that these predictions have become the reality, there is alarm.

Racetrack operators have not suffered the loss of a live audience; they have encouraged the migration to alternatives venues. This is neither accident nor unfortunate but was premeditated. Lamenting the result is ridiculous. Aside from the most important days of the racing season, there will never again be a vibrant atmosphere at most racetracks. Saratoga, Keeneland and Del Mar, along with Tampa Bay Downs and Oaklawn, are the exceptions and share the strength of the short, clearly defined seasons coupled with inviting ambiance.

This is the result of expanded simulcasting, the emergence of off-shore, Internet-based wagering alternatives that offer more attractive rebates, 12-month racing calendars in major markets, neglected facilities, price gauging, arrogant management, the absence of meaningful customer service at most tracks and a generally substandard product of which there is no better example than what is being passed off as horse racing at the moment in New York.

Racing differs from other sports in every conceivable way.

Most importantly, it is not a spectator sport but rather participatory through wagering, which is its central nervous system. Defined seasons are local and absent in the major markets. Racing goes on throughout the year. Its most attractive draw, the “big” horse, is of dubious value because of careers shortened by economic expediency and injury. Jockeys lack the star quality they believe they possess. Trainers, most of whom prefer to remain in the background, and owners, seen largely as passive participants, are not marketable. Even George Steinbrenner, larger than life in the world of baseball, and Joe Torre, perhaps the nation’s most recognizable baseball manager, are seen as celebrities who dabble in racing, not horse owners and breeders who happen to be involved in baseball. Racing has no equivalent to Mark Cuban but certainly could use such a personality. In this sport, original thinking and an outside-the-box approach will surely be rebuffed.

Most racing executives look to NASCAR as the standard for growing a fan base but nothing about NASCAR applies. Most people own automobiles and enjoy driving fast, so the process beings with a visceral connection. Few humans ride horses, fast or otherwise. And if NASCAR staged 10 races a day, five days a week, 12 months of the year at 20 tracks, the stands would soon become unoccupied except on the biggest days – just like the nations nation’s racing hippodromes.

The term “fan” in racing, except in rare and short-lived circumstance, is not applicable. There are only horseplayers, most of whom have no interest in being at Aqueduct or Hawthorne or Laurel Park on a daily or even occasional basis.

When racetrack crowds were large, there were no legal gambling alternatives outside Nevada, clearly defined seasons, no off-site options, no Internet and no in-home simulcasting. Racing has implemented most of these things in order to make the product, even a bad product, conveniently available or in reaction to an absurdly widened gambling market that places racetracks in competition with among other things the lotteries operated by the states that regulate the industry. There are too many things wrong with this picture to count.

So, between cocktails in Arizona, people are telling racing executives that they must bring back the fans and others are taking these lame warnings seriously.

Repeat after me: There are no fans. There are only horseplayers. They are already out there. You just don’t see them. They pay attention but they are not particularly happy. A look at the races being run today at most tracks may provide some insight as to the source of this displeasure. So, lacking opportunity, they put less money at risk. To make matters worse, they are suffering the same economic hardships that plague pretty much everyone in the world at the moment.

Bringing them back to Aqueduct, Hawthorne, Laurel Park, Turfway Park is not an option.

Mr. Moran: Another informative commentary that describes the current ills of Thoroughbred racing. I agree that Frank got it all wrong from the get go, that people do not go to the racetrack to be entertained; that racing is not a spectator sport; that there is no such thing as a ‘fan’, and that the ‘big’ horse is of dubious value; also that management is arrogant; facilities, for the most part, need improvement; food/beverage is overpriced and customer service lacking.

However, I do not agree with your finding that racing at Aqueduct’s winter meet is substandard and contributing to the decline of racing; certainly, Aqueduct racing is superior at this moment to racing at Tampa Bay, insofar as the price of horse flesh; then how come Tampa Bay is mentioned as being successful with a supposedly inferior product?

As I have mentioned in previous posts at this site, it is turf writers like yourself that, perhaps unwittingly, give racing a bad rap by commenting that racing at other than Belmont, Saratoga, Churchill, Santa Anita, Hollywood, et cetera, racetracks are substandard and not worthwhile for bettors to support.

As I have expressed numerous times, show me just how a race at Laurel or Hawthorne differs from one at Belmont - there is no difference in anyway or form whatsoever, and I can prove it via films. Come, take my test; not one person yet who has watched the films of the races I show have even come close, and just about all admitted they they guessed on several races as to whether the race was a stake race or claiming race.

As you know, it is all about gambling, about cashing tickets. Just as it is the same for the thousands of slot players sitting comatose in front of slot machines - all there to hopefully make money, not be entertained.

Another year of racing is just about completed and racetracks’ management, along with NTRA, and the vast majority of turf writers still stubbornly hold to the opinion that racing needs a ‘star’ who remains in racing for a few years to bring the ‘fans’ back; they have got it all wrong; fortunately slot revenue is keeping racing alive; hopefully, they will get it right before the slot revenue is cut off.

Talk about integrity of the game....how do these stewards weigh discretion with inquiries when it comes to leaving a horse up or taking him down??? Case in point: Cigar Mile, Ladies HDCP, 7th @ FG on 12/14. Granted these horses probably would have won anyway barring foul. What about placings they may have cost others with 2nd,3rd and 4th purse money when making their decisions...some right, some wrong perhaps. The old adage of “a foul is a foul” is looking more clear cut than letting the fans fate rest in stewards discretionary decisions. This coupled with doping, adw problems, takeout, and synthetic transition give old fans and potential newbies no desire to get involved in thoroughbred racing.

Hi Paul, o.k., maybe I am one of only a few, but I am a fan. I don’t gamble, I do go to the track & I do follow the horses. I even have a virtual stable on Equibase. Why? Because I like the horses. I agree with everything you’ve written, except that. It does seem to me like there are some things that are upside down - such as the area of the sport with the highest expenses profitting the least from gambling. There are labor and maintenance costs that have gone into a spiral that may be impossible to recover from - the track doesn’t have the money or manpower to do proper maintenance, facilities degrade, more people stay away. There is a huge difference between the average racetrack and the average football or basketball stadium. In fact, I’ve been to little league fields in better shape. So what can be done to fix this? What are some solutions?